Politicians and professionals: interactions between committee and staff in state legislatures
The Staff-Committee Interaction (SCI) project is designed to explore what happens in the dealings between the members and staffs of standing committees of state legislatures. In the SCI project, the targets of inquiry are twenty standing committees--those with jurisdiction over the policy domains of education, natural resources, and energy. First, the authors explore an aspect that has significant effects on the interaction process--the divergence between legislator and staff roles. Second, the authors describe what committees mainly need from staff and how staff generally responds. Committee needs and staff tasks involve procedural information much more than policy information. Most committee demand and most staff effort concern information of an essentially procedural nature, requiring activities such as drafting, scheduling, summarizing, assembling, briefing, reporting, enacting, and servicing. Third, the authors identify seven types of factors, all relating to the improvement of staff-committee interaction--linkage, structure, proximity, relevance, attention, repetition, and reinforcement.
- Research Organization:
- Rutgers--the State Univ., New Brunswick, NJ (USA). Eagleton Inst. of Pollution
- OSTI ID:
- 7220237
- Report Number(s):
- PB-265345
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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